1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a computer system, and more particularly to a computer system having two fixed disk drives with different operating systems in which selective booting and suspend/resume operation of the power management can be performed through the two fixed disk drives.
2. Related Art
Computer systems are information handling systems that are utilized by many individuals includes a central processing unit (CPU), a volatile memory, a non-volatile memory, a display monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, a floppy diskette drive, a compact disc-read only memory (CD-ROM) drive, a modem, a hard disk storage device, and a printer. Typically, a computer system's main components together.
Computer systems have fixed disk drives or hard disk drives as an auxiliary storage and the hard disk drive usually stores an operating system to operate the computer system during the booting process. A typical personal computer system using an AT-bus and having integrated drive electronics (IDE) type hard disk controller supports two hard disk drives. When the two hard disk stored in the master drive.
Since booting of the personal computer has been performed through one master hard disk drive, it is difficult to use two operating systems in a computer system. For example, if a common operating system such as Microsoft Windows 95 (R) is stored in the master hard disk drive, and the computer user wants to use other operating systems such as OS/2 (R) or Linux (R), the user should run the desired operating system at a different computer system or change the master hard disk drive of a computer system whenever required. Further, in the event that the boot sector of the master hard disk drive failed, it requires change of the bootable hard disk drive or needs a bootable floppy disk for operating the computer system.
Thus, there arises a need to furnish a personal computer system using two integrated drive electronics (IDE) type hard disk drives with a selective booting function which can boot from either the master drive or the slave drive, and thus two operating systems can be used in a single computer system effectively.
Exemplars of recent efforts in the art include U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,052 for Apparatus and Method for a Data Processing Unit Sharing a Plurality of Operating Systems issued to King et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,455 for Asynchronous Command Support for Shared Channels for a Computer Complex Having Multiple Operating Systems issued to Brown et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,171 for Processor Interface Chip for Dual-microprocessor Processor System issued to Rahman et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,580 for Computer with Capability to Automatically Initialize in a First Operating System of Choice and Reinitialize in a Second Operating System of Choice Without Computer Shutdown for Bertram et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,973 for Dual Operating System Computer for O'Brien et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,615 for Distributed Data Processing System Having Front-end and Back-end Computers with Different Operating Systems issued to Amatsu et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,154 for Method and System for Sharing Utilities Between Operating Systems issued to Jain et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,694,600 for Methods And Apparatus For Booting a Computer Having a Removable Media Disk Drive issued to Khenson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,403 for Method and System for Displaying Applications of Different Operating Systems on a Single System Using the User Interface of the Different Operating Systems issued to Brown et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,986 for Processor Having Plural Initial Loading Programs for Loading Different Operating Systems issued to Mori, U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,411 for Redundant Computer System Which Boots One System as the Primary Computer Form a Shared Drive issued to Speed et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,358 for System And Method For Installing Program Code For Operation From Multiple Bootable Operating Systems issued to Cox et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,860 for Power Management Initialization for a Computer Operable under a Plurality of Operating Systems issued to Canova, Jr. et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,245 for System for Booting Computer for Operation in Either One of Two Byte-order Modes issued to Zarrin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,456 for Method And Apparatus For Booting a Computer System Without Pre-installing an Operating System issued to Bennett et al.
Although various computer systems having multiple operating systems currently exist, I have discovered that there is a need to provide an improved computer system capable of selective booting from multiple disk drives.